Six Pack of Stats: Twins 3, White Sox 1

“It’s just a sample size of the season,” I repeat to myself, over and over

FanGraphs

The White Sox lose their first series against the Twins. And to make matters worse, so many embarrassing errors carried over from yesterday. The pitching was fine, but between cold bats and stupid errors, they never stood a chance in Minnesota.

The Starters

Lucas Giolito has been good against the Twins in the past. His fastball today was dominant. His velocity was excellent, even as he got to later innings — which is normally the opposite. He only allowed five hits and two walks, striking out seven. Giolito was charged with an earned run, but that’s simply due to poor scorer’s choice on an error. Still, Giolito looked great, probably the best I’ve seen in quite some time.

Giolito’s 108-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

It was a real pitchers’ duel today, as Giolito faced off against Sonny Gray. In five innings, Gray held the White Sox to only three hits, none of which converted into a run. Gray walked two and struck out five. With an arsenal of six pitches, he dominated with his changeup (38% CSW) and cutter (40% CSW).

Gray’s 78-pitch outing looked like this:

Baseball Savant

Pressure Play

Nick Gordon left the bases loaded in the third by flying out to center field in a 3.25 LI situation.

Pressure Cooker

Elvis Andrus went 0-for-3 today with one strikeout. He couldn’t accomplish anything, especially during critical moments, and has an empty 1.95 pLI to show for it.

Top Play

It pains me to bring this up so early on, but Ryan Jeffers’ triple out to right gave him a .119 WPA. Let’s just show this play.

Top Performer

Sonny Gray got the win after pitching five innings and keeping the White Sox off the board. His .275 WPA took game honors, while Lucas Giolito led the White Sox with .148.

Smackdown

Hardest hit: Willi Castro’s RBI double in the eighth was smoked at 107.6 mph.

Weakest contact: José Miranda’s first-inning single was lightly tapped at 65.0 mph.

Luckiest hit: We already know the play: Ryan Jeffers’ fourth-inning “triple” caused a lot of pain for White Sox fans, especially when you realize the xBA was only .060.

Toughest out: Andrew Benintendi’s fifth-inning line out had a .590 xBA.

Longest hit: HEY! We got a good one! Lenyn Sosa’s home run traveled 401 feet.

Magic Number: 3, again

With the 3-1 loss for the third and final game of this series, the White Sox are now three under .500.

Glossary

Hard-hit is any ball off the bat at 95 mph or more
LI measures pressure per play
pLI measures total pressure faced in-game
Whiff a swing-and-miss
WPA win probability added measures contributions to the win
xBA expected batting average